Horizon Cutting-room Links: Monday, 27 January 2025

"Host Hotels exploring sale of billion-dollar portfolio," Washington Business Journal

"The publicly traded Bethesda-based company (NASDAQ: HST) has hired an adviser to market the portfolio of hotels, which includes the Grand Hyatt in San Francisco, the W Seattle and the Coronado Island Marriott in California, per Bloomberg."

"C.I.A.’s Chatbot Stands In for World Leaders," New York Times

"Over the last two years, the Central Intelligence Agency has developed a tool that allows analysts to talk to virtual versions of foreign presidents and prime ministers, who answer back."

"Making better use of A.I., Mr. Burns said, is crucial to the U.S. competition with China. And better A.I. models have helped the agency’s analysts 'digest the avalanche of open-source information out there,' he said. The new tools have also helped analysts process clandestinely acquired information, Mr. Burns said. New technologies developed by the agency are helping spies navigate cities in authoritarian countries where governments use A.I.-powered cameras to conduct constant surveillance on their population and foreign spies."

“Pentagon to test how generative AI would perform in fight with China,” Defense One

“’Our goal is to test in the INDOPACOM [area of responsibility] with some specific Navy use cases over the next 90 days, a prototype between Anduril, Palantir AI solutions to try…drive down the time down and increase the decision space for commanders,” Radha Plumb, the head of the Defense Department’s Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office, or CDAO, told Defense One on Tuesday.

“A senior industry official familiar with the CDAO effort described the new project as not a single new product or tool, but a framework between a consortium of next-generation technology companies and commanders to better understand how they might use generative AI in operations—and then either building what they need or refining tools that already exist.”

“Laken Riley immigration bill will cost $83B, Democrats project,” Semafor

“Immigration and Customs Enforcement estimates that implementing the bill would cost $26 billion in the first year of enactment, ‘an increase of 174 percent from their current funded level’ and many times larger than their previous $3.2 billion estimate, according to the Democratic memo. The updated figure includes 118,500 more detention beds, 40,000 more jobs at ICE and a 25 percent increase in removal flights.”